Bitcoin’s weekend selloff drove BTC below $75,000 on February 1

Bitcoin’s weekend selloff carried BTC/USD below $75,000 on February 1, 2026, extending a decline that had already broken the psychologically important $80,000 line. A later review of Coinbase market data displayed through TradingView put the February 1 low at roughly $74,500. Contemporaneous reports published on February 1 documented the same rupture, although their observations fell on January 31 in New York time.

That timing distinction is material. Crypto trades continuously, there is no universal closing auction, and a move can belong to different calendar dates depending on whether a dataset uses UTC, exchange time or a reporter’s local clock. The defensible conclusion is that the weekend market crossed below $80,000 before continuing below $75,000 on the February 1 calendar date—not that every venue printed one identical low.

What the market record shows

CoinDesk reported that bitcoin reached $75,709.88 during New York afternoon trading on January 31, a decline of as much as 10% during the selloff. Its report, published at 1:38 a.m. Eastern on February 1 and corrected later that morning, said ether and solana each fell as much as 17%. It also cited CoinGecko for a $111 billion reduction in total crypto market capitalization and Coinglass for about $1.6 billion of liquidations over a 24-hour window.

Reuters supplied a separate timestamped observation: bitcoin at $78,719.63 at 12:48 p.m. Eastern on January 31, down 6.53%, and ether at $2,387.77, down 11.76%. Those figures are snapshots, not daily closes. They do not conflict with lower prints later in the continuous weekend session.

The roughly $74,500 February 1 low comes from a later February 3 account citing Coinbase data through TradingView. That source is useful for fixing the Sunday low but was not available on February 1. It is therefore used only to clarify the completed daily record, while the event-day framing rests on contemporaneous reports of the break below $80,000 and the accelerating weekend decline.

Why the break mattered

The move mattered because it showed that crypto’s institutional expansion had not removed its old market-structure vulnerabilities. Weekend books can be thinner than weekday conditions, while leveraged positions may be liquidated automatically as collateral values fall. That combination can amplify a directional move without proving a single cause.

Contemporaneous explanations included weak fresh demand, profit-taking by longer-term holders, a firmer dollar and concern that prospective Federal Reserve leadership could favor a smaller central-bank balance sheet. Those were attributed interpretations, not established causal measurements. The observed facts were narrower: BTC/USD broke major round-number levels, other large tokens fell with it, and derivatives liquidations rose during the same 24-hour period.

Institutional infrastructure was still developing alongside the stress. A CME filing with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission made modifications to its cryptocurrency futures market-maker program effective February 1. The program covered specified futures traded on Globex, required continuous two-sided quoting under defined obligations and offered incentives to qualifying participants. The filing is evidence of regulated-market support for liquidity; it is not evidence that the program caused, prevented or absorbed the spot-market decline.

Limits of the reconstruction

This reconstruction does not combine venue-specific lows into a synthetic official price. The $75,709.88 figure is CoinDesk’s observation for New York afternoon on January 31; $78,719.63 is Reuters’ 12:48 p.m. Eastern snapshot; and roughly $74,500 is a later account of Coinbase data for February 1. The $111 billion market-cap change and $1.6 billion liquidation estimate are third-party 24-hour measurements cited by CoinDesk and may vary with asset coverage, venue coverage and refresh time.

What February 1 established was a sharp, broad and leveraged weekend repricing. It did not establish the eventual bottom, the duration of the decline or the success of any market-maker program. Those questions required evidence that came after the event date and are not projected backward here.